🔴 Turkey’s opposition politicians attempt to calm voters down as Sunday’s events left Turkey on the edge, and signals of further provocations are on the rise.#Ekremimamoglu | #Elections2023 https://t.co/t5n8eF1Rfwhttps://t.co/8Bu89mjJl7 pic.twitter.com/IJkx0OPx9M
— MedyaNews (@1MedyaNews) May 8, 2023
After a mob attacked an opposition campaign rally on Sunday led by Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in Turkey’s nationalist-leaning eastern province of Erzurum, the politician addressed anxious supporters who had gathered for his return back into Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen airport.
Turkey’s opposition politicians have attempted to calm voters down as Sunday’s events left Turkey on the edge, and signals of further provocations are on the rise.
İmamoğlu’s Erzurum rally had been attacked by a group that threw stones at both the campaign bus and the rallied crowd.
A video İmamoğlu shared on social media, that accused the province’s governor of failing to take security measures, went viral before the mayor had even left Erzurum.
While the events in Erzurum were unfolding, other members of the mob roamed streets elsewhere in the province, terrorising from a car convoy.
Supporters were called by the head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Istanbul organisation, Canan Kaftancıoğlu, to gather at the airport to welcome back the mayor after the event.
“We are witnessing a critical moment. We are going through an historical period,” İmamoğlu said to his supporters as he landed back in Istanbul. He added that these provocations will continue so long as “the handful of ill-intended people” remained in power.
In his airport speech İmamoğlu targeted Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, who had called the mayor “a provocateur” on Twitter immediately after the mob attack. İmamoğlu said that the 200 -strong mob that had attacked his rally were not innocent.
Minister Soylu had also called İmamoğlu “one of the greatest imposters in the country’s history” during a live television broadcast while İmamoğlu was on his way back from the rally in Erzurum.
Soylu had gone on to accuse İmamoğlu of plotting “provocations” by holding rallies that lacked an official permit from the country’s Supreme Election Board.
The interior minister furtherly had claimed that the events in Erzurum were staged, and that only one person out of some 20 that arrived at hospital were wounded.
During his speech at the airport, İmamoğlu called the Interior Minister a “shameless man, defamer, [and a] liar.”
Istanbul’s mayor also directed several questions in relation to the incident to Erzurum’s mayor, it’s governor and the head of the province’s police.
Erzurum’s mayor, Mehmet Sekmen, during a press conference late on Sunday, accused İmamoğlu of intentionally creating chaos, and said that an official complaint will be lodged against the CHP over its attempt to hold a rally without a permit.
Sekmen also accused the CHP voters of throwing stones at the rally in Erzurum, despite the fact that videos circulating on social media demonstrate otherwise.
In a statement shared on Sunday evening, the Erzurum Governor’s Office accused İmamoğlu of holding the rally in an unpermitted location, claiming that the incident occurred despite measures taken by security forces.
The province’s governor said they had footage related to the incident and would detain the culprits.
Turkey’s presidential spokesperson, İbrahim Kalın, speaking at Habertürk television on Sunday evening, called the incident in Erzurum a “sad event”.
“It is sad that such an event occurred at a time when everybody is quite motivated and mobilising their masses on the ground,” said Kalın.
Yet, Kalın also criticised İmamoğlu for holding the rally at that particular location despite the objections of authorities.
“According to my latest conversations with the [Erzurum] mayor and the interior minister, what was supposed to be visits to local shop owners was turned into something else. When it was turned into some sort of a rally with a speech delivered with loudspeakers on the streets, a group reportedly has started an attack with stones. This is not acceptable,” Kalın said.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the presidential candidate of the opposition for 14 May polls and the leader of the CHP, shared a video on his Twitter account right after the incident in Erzurum.
“Their intent is to scare people. To keep them away from ballot boxes. All of Turkey will keep its restraint. Turkey is the country of the rational majority. This majority will put an end to this malignancy,” said Kılıçdaroğlu.
The politician called on voters to concentrate on 14 May elections. “Do not get angry, do not get offended. Love your people, embrace them,” he added.
The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), who has a long history of being targeted by mobs during election campaigns, also condemned the events in Erzurum and Mersin on Sunday, accusing the government of provoking such incidents by using a rhetoric of hate.
“Against this government mentality which undermines polling security due to the ill temper caused by the fear of losing, our people will not give up continuing their right-minded, mature and self-confident struggle,” the HDP said on Twitter.
Meral Danış Beştaş, the co-head of the HDP’s parliamentary group, condemned the attack on İmamoğlu on her Twitter account.
“The attack Ekrem İmamoğlu experienced is the outcome of the government’s dirty rhetoric. This incident which obviously was organised, cannot be appropriated to the people of Erzurum, does not reflect the attitude of the people,” she said, adding that the people will assert the proper response to those attacks through the 14 May polls.
The ruling party tied the events in Erzurum to CHP’s warm relations with the pro-Kurdish party, which openly endorsed Kılıçdaroğlu as presidential candidate.
At a previous election campaign event, İmamoğlu was welcomed by a large crowd of HDP voters making peace signs, an event which the Turkish government have repeatedly used as an instrument of further polarisation.
“Indeed Erzurum is a place which has certain sensitivities. Unfortunately, one should have assumed that Erzurum will give a certain reaction, after those signs in the Van rally, after flirting with the HDP voters,” said Derya Yanık, the minister of family and social policies, on live television on Monday.
The political environment in Turkey got even more edgy on Monday morning, as reports surfaced of another planned attack against İmamoğlu.
Officials that work for the Konya branch of the Red Crescent targeted İmamoğlu on social media, ahead of the mayor’s visit to the conservative central province on Monday.
“Those who want to stone the devil can go to the Anıt square,” wrote one Red Crescent official, the scheduled location for İmamoğlu’s Konya rally.
